Activist Fund Corvex Taps Biglaw For New Top Lawyer (WSJ)
Activist hedge fund Corvex Management LP has a new top lawyer, hiring for its own a long-time adviser to activist investors. Corvex, run by former Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP) -2.64% executive Keith Meister, has hired Patrick Dooley from law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP to be its general counsel, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Dooley starts his new job Tuesday and will be Corvex’s first in-house counsel, some of the people said. Mr. Dooley, age 58, spent 19 years at Akin Gump, where he focused on investments and acquisitions by private-equity firms and hedge funds, including activists.
A former hedge fund trader says Wall Street is like ‘The Wire’ (BizJournals)
Making money on Wall Street is just as addictive as taking drugs. That’s the argument former hedge fund trader Sam Polk makes in a New York Times essay. Polk, who left his job in 2010, says the rush of hauling in multimillion-dollar bonuses was like chasing after drugs in the streets of Baltimore. Polk writes: “Ever see what a drug addict is like when he’s used up his junk? He’ll do anything — walk 20 miles in the snow, rob a grandma — to get a fix. Wall Street was like that. In the months before bonuses were handed out, the trading floor started to feel like a neighborhood in ‘The Wire’ when the heroin runs out.”
Hedge fund Elliott raises Celesio stake to 24.08 percent (Reuters)
Activist investor Elliott Management Corp has raised its stake in German drug distributor Celesio and now controls shares equivalent to 24.08 percent of voting rights, regulatory filings to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Monday showed. New York-based hedge fund Elliott, which previously controlled shares with less than 20 percent voting rights, declined to comment. Earlier this month Reuters reported market talk that Elliott was adding to its stake after the failure of an $8.4-billion Celesio bid from McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK).
Hedge fund TCI cuts stake in Royal Mail (Telegraph)
Chris Hohn, the boss of TCI, has cut his holding in Royal Mail three months after building it, apparently confirming Vince Cable’s fears that hedge funds would not be long-term holders of the company. In a regulatory statement, TCI said it had reduced its stake in Royal Mail from 5.8pc to 4.58pc. The sale, which cuts the value of TCI’s investment by £74m, suggests that the hedge fund believes that Royal Mail shares are at the top of their valuation. Shares in the newly privatised delivery company closed last night at 600p, near its record high and more than 80pc above its float price of 330p. Labour ministers have said the Government “botched” the sale of Royal Mail and short-changed the taxpayer of billions of pounds by selling it too cheaply.
Mayfair’s billionaire hedge fund bosses are procrastinators just like the rest of us (CityAM)
Call it procrastination, call it the post-Christmas pile of paper work, but most hedge funds and private equity groups still haven’t submitted their application to operate under new EU regulations coming into force this year, research shows. With less than six months to go until the new laws come into force, over 80 per cent of fund managers still haven’t applied to be authorised under the new rules, called the alternative investment fund managers directive (catchy title, right?) The figures, uncovered by BNY Mellon, show four in ten managers plan to apply for authorisation before the end of March. A further 20 per cent said they’d leave it right up until deadline, which falls on 22 July.
Face it City boys, here’s why women make better hedge fund managers than men (Telegraph)
What does a hedge fund manager, or “hedgie” to those in the know, look like? Unlike the investment banking species, the hedgie is not a sociable creature. Little is revealed about who they are, what they look like, or indeed how much they make for themselves and their clients. There are a couple of notable exceptions; George Soros who is known for making $1 billion (£610 million) in a DAY by betting against the pound back on Black Wednesday 1992, and there’s Arki Busson, who is really known for being the Magritte-like moneyed suit behind then Elle McPherson and now Uma Thurman. Whatever little we know, most of us assume that those who inhabit this mysterious world of long and short trading are men.
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